Dimension Hopping, World Saving, and Other Adventures
by bookworm4497
Summary: It was a perfectly ordinary day for Bruce Banner until a guy appeared from nowhere, fell off a cliff, and died. Except he didn't STAY dead. And so began the adventures of Harry Potter and Bruce Banner. Harry Potter/Bruce Banner epic friendship for the ages, no slash, Master of Death!Harry, starts out pre-Avengers, but we'll get there. Title may be and probably should be changed.
1. The Beginning

Hello!

So, I've been reading Avengers fanfics for a long time, and figured it was high time that I joined in the writing. Thus, this fic was born.

This will include:

1) Master of Death!Harry/ pretty BAMF!Harry that hops dimensions (Overdone, I know.)

2) An awesomely awesome Bruce/Harry friendship

3) The rest of the Avengers, of course

And other things. Yes, Harry is Master of Death- but he is an experienced Master of Death, which makes all the difference. Anyway, I hope people like this. Hopefully, I'll be able to continue it.

Pre-Avengers to start, but we'll get there. Enjoy!

* * *

The day that Bruce Banner saw a man die and come back to life was also the day that he gained the best friend that he would ever have.

He was wandering somewhere in the middle of Africa- he wasn't quite sure where- avoiding the various agencies that wanted to use/exploit/study/kill him, when he saw a man appear at the top of a nearby cliff, stumble back slightly, and fall. He hit the ground with a sickening crack. Bruce was instantly running towards him, though he knew it was likely too late.

Sure enough, when he reached the man, the ground was stained red and the man had no pulse. There was nothing he could do.

Bruce sighed, hating that fact. He tried to devote his life to helping people; he hated it when he couldn't. Shaking his head sadly, he turned away from the body. He would alert the authorities when he could. Hopefully the body would be identified.

He had only taken a few steps away when he heard the groan. His eyes widened and he spun around, just in time to see the corpse sit up and swear. Violently.

"I just got here, and I already bloody died." The corpse muttered. "Just my luck."

Bruce gaped. "What?" He managed to gasp. The corpse- zombie?- turned towards him so quickly Bruce was afraid he'd get whiplash, you know, if he wasn't already dead. Or maybe he should be worried about it. Or did zombies not get whiplash?

Bruce decided he was going to stop thinking now. It was only going to make his head hurt more.

Back to the zombie-thing, which was staring at him sheepishly.

"Ooops." It/he said. "Haven't had that bad of a landing in a long time. Um… are you alright?"

"You were dead." Bruce blurted out. "No pulse. Blood loss. Head smashed in. Dead. Now you're not."

The zombie-thing winced. "Yeah. It's a thing. Um. Sorry if I freaked you out. I haven't had this bad of an arrival since… well. No one's witnessed my 'death' in a long time that didn't already know about my 'thing'. Er. I could wipe your memory if you like?"

Bruce blinked. "Wipe my memory?" Bruce was now pretty sure he was hallucinating. Nothing else made sense. People didn't appear on a cliff, die, come to life, and then talk about it like it was a weekly occurrence. This just didn't happen.

_Just like people don't turn into green rage monsters. _A little voice said in his head.

"Before you answer that," Bruce added before the zombie-thing could respond to his previous question. "What the hell are you?"

Zombie-thing stood up and made a sharp gesture towards his clothes and the area around him. All of the blood disappeared and zombie-thing stood before him, looking perfectly put together and completely clean, like his fall had never happened.

He extended a hand towards Bruce.

"My name's Harry. Just Harry. Like I said, the dying and coming back to life and stuff is a thing. No, I am not a zombie. I just… can't die." He shifted awkwardly. "Like I said, if this is too crazy, or traumatic or whatever, I can just wipe your memory, and you can go on your merry way, and I can go on mine."

"I'm Bruce, Bruce Banner. Do I have a choice?" Bruce asked calmly. He went through _way _too much of this crazy stuff, and he'd prefer to remember it. He doubted that this would be any more traumatic than any time the Other Guy got out.

Harry blinked, then smiled. "Sure. I don't perform involuntary mind-wipes. It's immoral."

"Then no, thank you."

"Great." Harry grinned. "In which case, do you mind if I tag along with you for a bit to make sure you're not going to report me or anything and so I have someone to cover for me until I figure out how this world works? I haven't had a chance to acclimate yet."

Bruce narrowed his eyes at the man suspiciously. "You're not planning to lead an alien army to invade the planet, are you? Or planning to report me or something?"

Harry was honestly surprised. This guy was taking everything ridiculously well. "No, I'm not. Who does that? I'm just a traveler, I try not to make waves… don't usually succeed, but it's the though that counts. Why would I report you?"

Bruce grinned back. He liked this guy, and somehow knew he could trust him. Plus, the Other Guy didn't seem to mind him either, which was always a plus. "Oh, I turn into a great big green rage monster when I get angry, and am currently being hunted down by several government/army agencies. If you're ok with that, feel free to travel with me for a while."

Harry thought for a moment then shrugged. "Eh. I've heard weirder and worse." He reached forward and shook Bruce's hand. "Looks like you've got a traveling companion, Bruce."

Bruce shook his hand with a small smile, happy that Harry hadn't freaked out or anything. "Great. I've been getting a bit lonely. Quick question- how have you heard weirder?"

Harry laughed. "My uncle in my original dimension was a werewolf, for one. Full moon, silver allergy, everything." He paused. "Do you have werewolf stories here?"

"Of course. Why wouldn't we?"

As they walked back to Bruce's camp site, Harry explained his background. Turned out, the guy had started out as a wizard (yes, like wands and brooms and cauldrons) but had taken possession of three items that had given him more powers on top of that. Now, he hopped around universes and dimensions like he was playing hopscotch. He would move on when he 'died' or when his lack of aging was starting to stand out and draw attention. He'd lost count of how many worlds he'd visited. Oh, and he was sort-of immortal. He could get killed and whatnot, but he wouldn't _die._ He didn't age either. He refused to tell Bruce how old he really was, but revealed that physically, he was about 20. Bruce could tell there was other stuff Harry wasn't telling, but he didn't pry.

"Can you control the traveling?" Bruce asked curiously.

"Not at first." Harry said, looked a bit sad and haunted. "That was a bad period- I was new to all of this, couldn't control when I jumped, and was confused as hell about just about everything. As time went on, though, I learned to control it and all my other powers. I'm used to everything now. I visit my home-dimension every so often. My friends there all know about my thing- they were there when it happened- so they aren't freaked out as much."

"Shouldn't they be dead by now then? I got the impression you've been traveling for a long time."

Harry just smiled mysteriously. "Time moves in odd ways, Mr. Banner. A year here may be a minute there, or it may be a year or a decade or a second. It seems time there moves particularly slowly, compared to everywhere else."

That raised _so _many questions, but Bruce decided to prioritize and move on, absent-mindedly correcting Harry about the 'Mr.' as opposed to 'Dr.'.

By the end of the day, Bruce Banner and Harry Potter were close friends, and within a week they'd come to a silent agreement that they would keep traveling together, even though they were both confident that the other wouldn't turn them in and Harry had found his bearings in this new world.

And so began the story of the doctor-turned-Hulk and the Master of Death.

* * *

So, what do you think? Good, not-so-good? Tell me if you think I should continue!

REVIEW! Please.


	2. The First Week Ends with a Bang

I'm back!

So, obviously, I decided to continue this story. Yay! I got a lot of nice feedback, so how could I resist?

This chapter is still sort-of exposition. Very wordy, not much dialogue. It probably won't stay this way. Usually, I tend to go more towards dialogue, so there'll probably be more talking later.

This story is not planned out in any way, shape, or form, so if you've got ideas, suggestions, comments, I'd love to hear it!

Enjoy the chapter!

DISCLAIMER: I don't own a thing. Did I do this for the first chapter? Oh well.

* * *

They managed a week before anything major happened. Frankly, Bruce was surprised they'd lasted that long.

That week had been one of the happiest weeks of his life- since the accident, at least. He had quickly learned that Harry didn't care about any of his quirks and, in fact, had many of his own quirks that made Bruce's pale in comparison. For example, if they spent more than an hour anywhere, Harry insisted on putting up some wards. He also insisted that Bruce carry around a portkey that would take him to a safe location if activated. Bruce though he was being over paranoid, but agreed anyway. He ate his words a few days later when the port key got him out of a situation that probably would have resulted in the Other Guy's appearance. He didn't say a word about Harry's precautions after that. He had a sneaking suspicion that Harry's wards were the reason why it took a week for anything big to happen.

Bruce was surprised at how quickly he had gotten used to having the ebony haired wizard traveling with him. Where his travels had previously been lonely, quiet, and nerve-wracking, now he was happy, chatting lightly with his friend, safe behind whatever protections Harry had set up. The wizard was obviously enjoying the company as well. He told Bruce that he'd been unlucky with the past few worlds he'd visited- in one, he'd been executed within a week of arriving (apparently, they didn't take very well to outsiders. He could have escaped, of course, but it wasn't worth the effort. He would have left anyway, and it wasn't like execution really affected him), another had been uninhabitable (unless you were, you know, immortal or something), and in another the inhabitants had just been horrible people (Harry said they'd reminded him of his aunt and uncle). None had been remotely earth-like. Harry had confided that he'd always had a preference for earth-like planets, because they reminded him of his home.

Bruce pointed out that Harry could visit his home whenever he wanted. Harry had retorted that that wasn't always the case, and his feelings about earth-like planets were a remnant of that time.

Bruce got used to magic fairly quickly as well. Harry didn't use it too much- mostly just for the protection. The scientist in him wanted to analyze everything about it, every rule and facet and seeming impossibility. He'd questioned Harry about it for a good hour before the man had finally burst out laughing and told him that it was _magic, Bruce, of course it's not entirely logical. There are rules, sure, some that are really annoying- like the fact that you can't create food out of nothing, or transfigure it. Sucks when you have to go on an unexpected camping trip. Not to mention the fact that my powers don't even follow the conventional rules of wizardry. I follow a completely different set of rules, Bruce, and not even I know all of them, or which ones are really fundamental, unchangeable rules and which ones are only there because I haven't learned how to overcome them yet. _

That had, of course, spawned entirely new conversations. Bruce wanted to explore how to combine technology with magic, science with magic- perform endless experiments and tests. He hadn't been as interested in anything since the gamma radiation experiments, and see where that led him. He was more cautious with magic. He wasn't able to do much experimenting, being that they were in the middle of nowhere, but he did what he could to explore this new field laid out in front of him.

So, as the week wore on, the two learned more about each other and grew closer. Bruce hadn't talked to anyone like this, hung out with anyone like this, since the Other Guy came into his life. And damn if that didn't make the Hulk sound like a jealous girlfriend who wouldn't let him spend time with anyone else.

Harry had collapsed in hysterics when Bruce voiced that though. Bruce himself hadn't been far behind.

Now, the first week, the amazing week, was ending with a bang. And some smashing.

Harry wasn't with him- they had reached a village struck with some kind of sickness, and had split up to try and figure out what had happened and if there was anything they could do. Both Bruce and Harry had their own specific talents, and they wanted to try to work it out on their own first before combining their conclusions. So they'd split up, which meant that Harry wasn't with him when the group of soldiers burst out of the forest and leveled their guns at him. Bruce couldn't decide if that was a good thing or a bad thing. On the one hand, Harry had magic and could probably turn the idiots into toads, but at the same time Bruce didn't want him to meet the Other Guy, even if he did seem ok with it.

_This is not going to end well. _Bruce thought, eyeing the guns warily. They wouldn't actually _hurt _him, of course, but the Other Guy would be making an appearance if they started firing, and he didn't want any of his companions getting hurt. Also, it had been such a long time since he'd lost control- he didn't want to break the streak.

"Put your hands up and come quietly, Banner." The apparent leader of the soldiers ordered. Bruce raised an eyebrow slightly, frantically trying to think of a way out of this mess.

"So you can kill me? Experiment on me?" He said calmly, not moving.

"You're a monster." The soldier spat. "You deserve to be put down."

Bruce began to feel the first stirrings of rage. "You don't know me, soldier." He said, internally trying to stomp on the sparks of anger. "How can you know I'm a monster?"

The soldier hefted his gun. "Shut up. Come with us or I'll start shooting."

Bruce let out a sigh and took a single step forward. "No."

One of the men, obviously not liking that answer and wary of any movement, fired his gun.

_Damn it. _Bruce thought, as the Other Guy started taking over. He fought to keep control, but he could tell that it wasn't working. And then everything was anger, fighting, hurting the men who tried to hurt him, Bruce's rational side shoved aside in favor of the Other Guy's mindless rage.

* * *

Halfway across the village, Harry heard a angry roar, and looked up just in time to see flocks of birds flying out of the forest near the village.

_That can't be a good sign. _He thought. He shot a glance at the children who had been trailing him since he entered the village, somehow feeling safe with him and watching his motions with interest.

"Stay here." He ordered, then sprinted in the direction the roar came from. Damn his hero complex. He had to go make sure that everything was alright. And probably calm the Hulk down. Somehow.

* * *

And fin!

So, we're getting to some action. I hope it's not to early to bring out the Hulk. Just as a warning, I suck at fight/violent scenes, so I'll usually kind of gloss over them, like I did with Hulk beating the fudge out of the soldiers. If anyone's read my other stories, I do this a million times in Divided, so you're probably used to it. Sorry.

Reviews make the Hulk happy! Or, as happy as the Hulk can be without smashing something...


	3. Calming Down the Hulk Somehow

__I'm back! I haven't died, or gotten smushed by Hulk!

I'm really sorry about how long this took... I had APs last week, and I was studying like nuts and stressed beyond belief, and then this weekend I had no wifi. So I couldn't type this. Which sucked. So it took a bit longer than I thought. Sorry, again.

Anyway, you probably want to get to the chapter. I'll do more notes at the end.

DISCLAIMER: I own nothing. At all. Zip. Zero. Nada. Goose eggs. Got it?

* * *

_OK, got to calm the Hulk down. _Harry thought frantically as he ran. _How do I do that? _

He'd never actually seen the Hulk. He didn't know if the Hulk would recognize him or what it would look like or really anything. Bruce had told him about it as a precaution, of course, but essentially Harry was running into the situation blind. Bruce had only described the Hulk as a 'big green rage monster'.

It wasn't that difficult to recognize the Hulk though. He made an educated guess and guessed that it was the giant green man-like thing tossing soldiers around like rag dolls.

Now, how to calm him down?

Briefly, he weighed the advantages of slowing down and coming up with some sort of plan against rushing in and doing whatever he could on the fly.

Damn his Gryffindor tendencies.

First things first, take care of the soldiers. Those still alive, that was. Quickly, he levitated all the soldiers he could see towards him and away from Hulk. He set up a hasty ward around them to keep Hulk from grabbing them again- he was getting entirely too good at wards- before striding forward to confront the Hulk.

"Banner?" He called cautiously. "It's me, Harry. Everything's fine. You can… er… de-green-ify now. Alright?"

Hulk slowed down slightly and stared at him. Then he roared. Then he attacked.

"Bloody hell!" Harry swore, continuing to swear in various different languages and dialects from whatever worlds he'd visited as he simultaneously dodged the Hulk and tried to come up with a plan.

"Ok, ok." He muttered. "Er. Got to get him calm. Not angry. How do I do that. Er. A cheering charm?"

A cheering charm slowed Hulk down for about a second. He was just too dang big for the charm to have much of an effect- even overcharged, it wasn't the strongest charm. Plus, Harry had a sneaking suspicion that the Hulk had a resistance to ordinary magic.

So, ordinary magic probably wouldn't do much. At least, they wouldn't if Harry didn't want to harm him friend. Which he didn't. That left him with one option.

Harry gritted his teeth and tapped into his powers as Master of Death. He'd discovered long ago that even if someone or something had a resistance to ordinary magic, his 'death' magic wouldn't be effected. There was no defending against death. This power took a long more control and a finer touch than ordinary magic did- the Elder Wand helped somewhat, but not much. Using his 'death' powers took a lot of concentration, especially if he wasn't actually looking to cause death. Which he wasn't. Killing Bruce would be bad.

One of his powers- one he'd discovered relatively early- was his ability to manipulate life forces. Everyone had a life force (duh), but as one's life went by, the life force faded gradually until it was gone- at which point the person died of old age. Any other type of death- murder, accident, illness- killed the body, but didn't effect the life force. Of course, that didn't stop the person from dying; their life force didn't help heal them or anything. After one of the aforementioned types of death, the life force of the person just… dissipated. Unless Harry trapped it, of course. But that's not important right now. What _is _important is that Harry could manipulate life forces. He could restore a worn force, or dim it. If he dimmed it enough, he could extinguish it, killing the person. Or, he could just dim it a little and weaken the person, or send them into a coma that was almost death. A coma he could reverse instantly by restoring the person's life force, and so avoid permanent damage.

Hopefully, by manipulating Bruce's life force, he could calm him down. At the very worst, he could send Bruce into a coma and then bring him back out when it was safe. He'd rather not do that, but he'd do whatever he had to to save the most number of people- the soldiers, in this case. And the villagers, if Hulk got bored with the soldiers. He didn't bother including himself in the tally of people in danger. Harry knew he could successfully take on the Hulk in hundreds of different ways- but he wanted a way that _wouldn't _result in lasting harm for Bruce. Because he was his friend. Friends typically try not to permanently injure other friends. Most of the time.

Yes, he was well aware that he was panicking somewhat. However, this would be rather difficult- for some reason, he'd never tried this on a rampaging rage monster that was resistant to magic before- but he could do it. Probably. Hopefully.

He took a deep breath and threw up some rudimentary wards around himself, mostly to prevent the Hulk from squishing him while he did this. It usually only took a few seconds, but better safe than sorry.

He braced himself and met Hulk's eyes. Instantly, he was plunged into Hulk's mind. This life-force manipulating thing was a bit like legilimency, except that he was targeting a different part of the person. Legilimency went straight for memory-storage; he went deeper. Much, much deeper.

He found Bruce's life force, and paused. It was unusually large- maybe something to do with combining with the Hulk? Most of the time, the life forces appeared white to whatever sense he was using; Bruce's was covered with a thin layer of green. Tendrils of the green leaked through into the main life force, some strands reaching deeper that others. Not much, but they was still there, contaminating the whole. Whatever had created the Hulk had really affected him. It didn't seem dangerous or harmful, however, so he pushed the thought to the back of his mind for now.

He hesitated for a moment, and then reached out, went through the green layer and connected his magic to the normal, white life force. Then, he siphoned some of its energy out into a piece of crystal he carried for that exact reason. The crystal would store the life force without damaging it, so that he could return it to Bruce later. He had several of the crystals, and he tried to keep one full at all times. It was helpful sometimes. The one he was using now was about half-full, but it didn't really matter. Life force was life force, no matter who it came from.

He didn't drain too much- just enough so that he knew that, at the very least, Bruce would feel tired, lethargic. At worst, he would be in a very light coma. He wasn't sure how the Hulk would effect it, so he wasn't sure exactly how much to drain. Then, he withdrew his magic and returned to the real world.

He blinked and watched at Hulk began shrinking. He absentmindedly cast a charm- it had taken him about 3 minutes. On the long side, but he'd been experimenting, so it was to be expected. He returned his attention to his friend, watching closely as Bruce became less green. After a few moments, Bruce was standing in front of him, looking decidedly non-green.

Harry summoned some clothes from Bruce's pack. Apparently, Bruce's clothes didn't survive the transformation, which was a strike against comparing it to the Animagus transformation. It seemed more like the werewolf transformation, to be honest.

"Feeling better?" He asked his friend with a small smile.

"Much." Bruce yawned. "Wha'd you do?"

"Drained a bit of your life force." He answered flippantly. "That's why you feel so tired. I'll restore it soon, don't worry."

Bruce stared at him. "You did _what?" _

Harry sighed. He hated explaining this. Mostly because he wasn't sure how to explain it himself.

As they headed back towards their camp, Harry kept a close eye on Bruce. Those green tendrils infecting his life force… it seemed wrong. A layer around the force, fine, he'd seen something like that. But actually mixing in to the main life force?

Well. Harry may have just discovered why the Hulk was so difficult for Bruce to control. Now, he just had to figure out how to fix it. He wasn't Master of Death for nothing though. He would figure it out and help his friend.

He couldn't do anything for Remus, after all. But maybe he could do something for Bruce.

* * *

Lots of explanation. Some action too, yay.

I have no idea if anyone will like what I've done with this life force thing, but whatever. It kind of snuck up on me and hit me in the head with a club until I wrote it. So, hope it's ok.

...What? I totally stole the life-force-with-tendrils-thing from the book _Wild Magic__? _What are you talking about? Bruce is obviously not Daine. (Though if he is, Harry is totally Numair. Except they're not going to be in a relationship.)

REVIEW! Please. I can't threaten you with Hulk, cause he's de-Hulk-ified, but still.


	4. Operation Fix Bruce

I'm back! Sorry about the wait. Again.

Anyway, this is a long chapter of longness and long paragraphs. Lots of explanations, again. And yes, I have continued stealing ideas from Wild Magic, but I actually sorta cited it in the story so it's ok, right? Everything's explained, kinda, to the best of my ability, so you don't actually have to read the book or anything, it's just where I stole the idea from.

Right, so, Operation Fix Bruce, in which Harry helps Bruce with the Hulk. And Bruce is usually confused. Enjoy!

Disclaimer: Own nothing. There. Now read.

* * *

Harry couldn't put his plan in place immediately, of course. They had to reassure the villagers, move camp, and he had to calm down Bruce again. Bruce still didn't trust that Harry wouldn't run screaming. Harry had to tell him about Remus multiple times before Bruce would calm down. Then, Bruce had freaked out because of the damage he had done to the village. Harry assured him that he'd fixed it. It was amazing what an overpowered Reparo would do. He'd also removed the memories of the Hulk from the soldiers and the villagers. They were safe. Harry hadn't liked doing it, but it was necessary. A long, long time ago, Harry would never have done it- but then, he'd grown and seen a lot since he left his original world. He wasn't innocent at all anymore.

Then, he'd had to restore Bruce's life force. Restoring was much easier than draining- Harry pretty much just took the life force he'd stored in the crystal and shoved it back into Bruce, with a little extra just to make sure. Bruce said that it felt a bit like a jolt of adrenalin. Harry shrugged- it felt different for everyone. Bruce then made Harry drain his force again so he could see how it felt when he was actually aware. And then he'd done it again, for science.

After that, they'd been traveling for a week. Harry knew they would need a stable camp for what he wanted to do, someplace they could stay for a couple of days. Hopefully, it wouldn't take too long, but who knew. Better be safe than sorry. Plus, Harry needed some time to figure out how to do this. He'd learned the technique he would use from a couple in one of the earth-like dimensions he'd visited. Of course, said dimension appeared to be several hundred years behind his earth, all the continents and countries were wrong and magic- well, a type of magic- was much more common and widespread, so it wasn't exactly like home. The girl, Daine, had told Harry about how Numair, at the time her teacher, had helped her learn to control her own wild magic. Harry hoped to adapt that method to help Bruce.

Two days after Harry and Bruce found a nice camp, Harry approached Bruce with his idea.

"I think I can help you control the Hulk." Harry said, plunking down across from Bruce, who was tending the fire. Bruce looked up, startled. "What?"

"I think I can help you control the Hulk." Harry repeated. Bruce just gaped at him. The he exhaled slowly and closed his eyes. "Why do you say that?" He asked calmly. Harry blinked. "Because I do. Are you ok?"

"There is no way to control the Hulk, Harry." Bruce said slowly. "I've tried everything."

"You haven't tried freaky death magic." Harry said cheerfully. "Seriously though, when I was draining your life force I saw what I think is causing the problem. C'mon, you might as well give it a try."

Bruce just stared at him. "Um. This won't permanently damage me, right?"

"Not if we do this right." Harry said cheerfully. "So, what'd'ya say?"

Bruce looked at Harry's cheerful, pleading face. He blinked. He sighed. "Why am I doing this?" He wondered out loud.

"Yay!" Harry cheered. Bruce sighed again. He _knew _this was going to be a bad idea.

* * *

"Ok, sit there." Harry pointed to a stump. He'd led Bruce away from the camp a little. There was a small stream to one side and forest to the other; it was a peaceful place. Bruce just hoped he wasn't going to wreck it.

"So, here's how this is going to go." Harry began. "Like when you Hulked out before, I'm going to delve into your mind- oh calm down, it's not like I'm going to rummage through your memories. Anyway, I'll hop from there to your life force. This time, though, I'm going to bring you with me. Well, your consciousness anyway, but whatever. When I bring you to your life force, you're going to see what looks like a green film on top of the normal white force. There's a bunch of tendrils of the green bleeding into the white, which is what I think is the problem. A girl I met in different dimension had a similar problem. I learned about this from her, actually. So, it's a real, tried and true method. Calm down. What we're going to have to do is remove most of the green from the normal force."

"Most of it?" Bruce frowned. "Why not all?"

"Well, technically the Hulk is like a second identity for you." Harry explained. "Like multiple personality disorder. Kinda. Anyway, for that girl I was telling about before, the tendrils bleeding into her force were from her magic. Since her magic was, literally, a part of her through and through- like, impossible to take away- removing all of it and putting a barrier in between was fine, it just let her control it. The Hulk, like I said, is still _you- _just a bit more angry. So, I don't even want to try to remove it completely. What we _can _do, is remove some of the tendrils and maneuver the other ones into more manageable positions rather than being all willy-nilly so you can control the Hulk."

"How do we do that?" Bruce… wasn't quite enthusiastic about this. It seemed kinda dangerous. And he didn't really like all this magic stuff- he was a science guy, Hulk had been created by science, and now magic was supposed to fix this?

Harry frowned. "Well, theoretically, your life force effects you, so anything that happens to it happens to you. The.. lets call them Hulk-strings attached themselves to your force, so you got another guy in your head, and affecting all of you. If we maneuver it so the Hulk-strings are only touching in a few areas- we'll probably go compass points, north south east west- it should make it so the Hulk only affects you a little, and so you can control when it does. Like, the Hulk-strings are out of control at the moment, so Hulk is out of control, but if they were _under control, _the Hulk would be too."

Bruce stared at him blankly. "…huh?"

"Don't worry, I don't really understand it either. But we can do it. I think."

That did not reassure Bruce, but before he could protest Harry had reached out and grabbed his arm, and then there was a second of confusing lights and images and weird feelings, and then Bruce was staring at a brilliant ball of white light infested with green.

"That's you life force." Harry said from beside him. Well… he said beside him, but Bruce couldn't actually see Harry. He just knew that he was there. "See the layer of green?" Harry continued. "Good. Now, look closer- see the tendrils?"

Bruce nodded. Or kinda nodded. He didn't seem to have a real body at the moment. He was so, _so _confused about what was happening right now. Harry didn't give him time to adjust, but plowed ahead.

"Ok, now what you have to do is take the strings out of the white and back into the green."

Bruce frowned, at least as much as he could. "How?"

He got the feeling that Harry was shrugging. "I dunno. Maybe try tugging on them?"

"I thought you knew what you were doing!" Bruce exclaimed, but reached out to try to tug on one of the strings anyway. To his shock, it slid easily out of the white. Bruce blinked at brought the end of the string to the green layer; it was quickly sucked into the whole.

"There you go!" Harry cheered. "Now, keep doing that, but remember to leave 4 in. Like I said, we don't want to risk getting rid of it completely. Oh, FYI, I do know what I'm doing and I'm gonna help you do it a little. But I'm using freaky death magic and stuff which you can't do, so you needed to figure it out yourself."

It seemed to take a while, but eventually Bruce and Harry got most of the green out. Harry tackled the larger, stubborn strands while Bruce went for everything else. Eventually, there were just four straight, thickish tendrils at the compass points. Bruce stood back (kinda) and observed their handiwork.

"Huh." He muttered. "So, this is supposed to help?"

He got the shrug-feel from Harry again. "Guess we'll just have to find out."

The was a tug and suddenly Bruce was back at the campsite looking at Harry. Said wizard released his arm and sat back.

"Alright?" He asked with a grin. Bruce nodded slowly. "That… was weird. How long were we out for?"

"Tempus." Harry cast. "Looks like it was about an hour."

Bruce straightened in alarm. "So long? What if someone saw us? Or what if-"

"Relax." Harry soothed. "I set up wards as soon as we got here. No one could find us. Now, do you feel any different?"

Bruce calmed down and took stock. Did he feel different?

"A bit calmer maybe." He said slowly. "And… and I can't feel the Hulk in my head as much." He looked up, wide-eyed. "It worked?"

Harry shrugged again. "If it worked the way I wanted it to, you should be able to go Hulk on demand and stay in control. Try it."

Bruce frowned, apprehensive, but obediently tried to transform. He had a small problem in the form of the fact that he had no idea how to transform except involuntarily when he was angry. His frown deepened as he thought about the Hulk's rage, about previous Hulk-outs, how he would burst out from under Bruce's skin and shove Bruce into a corner of his mind-

He blinked and realized he was several feet taller and quite a bit greener. And he was calm and thinking rationally.

Harry tilted his head back to look at Bruce. "Bruce?" He called uncertainly.

Bruce grinned. "It's me." He said. It was a shock to hear Hulk's deep, growly voice, both because usually Hulk was just roaring and not actually forming words and because Bruce half expected his normal voice to come out, since he felt like normal.

"Brilliant!" Harry shouted. "Now, de-Hulk."

Bruce frowned and concentrated again. He'd been thinking of the Hulk when he transformed, so if he thought about Bruce, maybe-

this time, he was aware of the change. He could feel himself shrinking and becoming Bruce Banner again. When the transformation was complete, he grinned ear to ear and laughed, happier than he had been in a long time.

"It worked." He laughed. "It worked!"

"Terrific." Harry grinned. "Now, would you mind putting some clothes on? Then we can continue."

The first order of business was enchanting some pants so they wouldn't be destroyed when the Hulk appeared.

* * *

On that note, anyone know _how _those purple pants Hulk always wears don't get all destroyed? I mean, really, IDK if it was addressed in the comics or something, but I have no clue.

Aaaanyway, hope you liked the chapter! If you're confused about anything, that's ok, I don't know how half of the things they did worked either. PM me or review and I'll try to explain. I know, all the explanations sucked, but what can you do. I tried.

Umm... don't think we'll be seeing anything else Wild Magic related, but maybe I'll sneak a reference in because it would make me happy. IDK.

REVIEW! Please!


	5. Control and Pants

New chapter! Yay!

Ok, so after I got so many comments about the pants thing- I had some really interesting PM conversations about it- I decided to expand on it a bit. So, more pants debate in here. Also Bruce refining his control. And storytime.

Hope you enjoy!

Oh, and a note: On Tuesday, I'm going to be leaving for camp. I'm going to get back middle of August, so this will be the last chapter for a while. After I get back, I'll pick it up again.

Happy reading!

DISCLAIMER: I own nothing.

* * *

The pants thing turned out to be almost more trouble than it was worth.

First, they had to figure out what type of pants they wanted. That actually wasn't the problem- they pretty much went with what Bruce normally wore. No, the problem was what came next. Harry insisted that Bruce couldn't just wear his normal pants. No, they needed to have some _flair_. So they began tossing some ideas around.

First, Harry wanted to add some sort of design to it. He wanted to add little Hulks smashing stuff onto the pants. He would enchant them to move and everything. Bruce objected. Strenuously. He said that Harry was crazy and refused to listen to Harry anymore. In retaliation, Harry charmed the pants to show little broomsticks and snitches flying around. Bruce didn't get it, which led to Harry explaining Quidditch. And showing Bruce his broom, which Bruce then tried to take apart with science. It didn't work.

Back to the pants.

Once Bruce convinced Harry to remove the brooms and snitches, they agreed to scrap the design idea. One color would be fine.

Of course, this led to an argument about just which color.

Pink was out because… well. It was pink. On a giant green rage monster. No. Just, no. Bruce had no idea what Harry was thinking. Neither did Harry, for that matter.

Orange was out, pretty much for the same reason.

Black was considered, but rejected on the basis that it was boring. Bruce didn't think it would be that bad, but whatever.

Blue was rejected as well. A dark blue might not have been too bad, but Harry muttered something about blue being overused and did Bruce want to be mainstream? If Bruce ever worked with other heroes, Harry bet that at least two would wear blue. At least. It was apparently a rule of the multiverse.

Red was out because Hulk was a giant rage monster, not Santa. This wasn't Christmas.

Brown was out because it was boring, apparently.

Neither wanted purple because it made Bruce think of Barney the dinosaur. Harry refused to say what it made him think of. All he said was that it was a traumatic experience on a decidedly not-Earth-like planet.

Yellow was too cheerful. Hulk _was _a rage monster, after all.

So, after eliminating pretty much every color on earth, they were pretty much nowhere. They started going back over the colors and tried to figure out which would be ok. Of course, they started arguing. They both got pretty worked up over it for some reason- probably just releasing the tensions of the past few weeks- and it eventually started full-out arguing.

Which was when Bruce Hulk-ed out. Turns out that perfect control? Not so perfect after all.

* * *

The pants issue was set aside in favor of Bruce learning to control the Hulk, for real this time. Which meant that he spent a lot of time meditating, picking arguments with Harry to test his control (during which the pants issue reemerged. Several times.), meditating some more when he found out that he was not, in fact, in control, and fine tuning his control once he made progress. Several forests were destroyed and then fixed by Harry. Bruce joked that they should call Hulk the Tree Killer instead. It was ridiculous how much damage he did. Harry warned him that he would probably never have perfect control, but hopefully he could learn to stop or slow down the transformation if he got too angry.

Slowly, over the next few weeks, Bruce gained more control. The arguments got longer and more complex, and several ended without an 'incident'. This was good because the tension around camp was starting to get a bit overwhelming. The arguments may have just been a tool, but the feelings were real.

One day, when Harry and Bruce were relaxing by the fire, Bruce asked Harry about why he was helping him.

"I mean, most people would have run by now." He reasoned. "They wouldn't talk to me, let alone go through all of this. So why are you?"

Harry stared into the fire. "Did I ever tell you Remus' story?" He asked out of the blue. Bruce shook his head.

"He was that werewolf uncle I mentioned to you once." Harry said quietly. "He was bitten by this really, really evil werewolf- the guy gave a bad name to all werewolves. Remus thought he was a monster for most of his life. Then he made friends with my dad and two other guys- Sirius, my godfather, and Peter, who is a filthy rotten traitor and we don't talk about him. Ever. Anyway, they tried to convince him that he wasn't a monster- didn't work too well- and they learned how to turn into animals- Animagi- so they could stay with him during his transformation. That was the first time he had someone who accepted him. My mum eventually joined the group, although she wasn't an animagus. When he was an adult, Remus was discriminated against even more. He was shunned because of his 'furry little problem'. Everyone else was dead or… unavailable, so he didn't have anyone to stand up for him.

"By the time I met him, he was back to hating himself. My friends and I tried to help, but nothing we said really worked. He died thinking he was a monster."

Harry paused and looked Bruce in the eye.

"On my travels, I learned of a cure. It was one of the first things I taught Hermione, one of my best friends, when I finally made it back home. That world's time, it had been only been about a year since Remus died. I was too late to help him, but I promised myself I would help everyone else I could. It's not too late for you. So I'm helping you. Plus, you're my friend. I _want _to help you. No one deserves to live thinking they're a monster when the issue is beyond their control. _It's not your fault_."

Bruce nodded, throat tight. Neither spoke for a long time, caught up in memories and forgotten hopes.

* * *

Once Bruce had enough control, they revisited the pants issue. They really should have done it before- given all of the 'incidents' while Bruce was trying to get control- but it had always inevitably ended up in an argument. Which led to an 'incident'. As such, it didn't help. At all.

Now though, almost two weeks after the initial fix, Bruce finally could control himself enough to figure this issue out. The two revisited their list of possibilities and started arguing again. Neither could agree on a color. Actually, neither could come up with a color that they thought would be alright.

"Ok, this is getting ridiculous." Harry huffed, throwing his hands up in the air. "You know what? I'm just going to toss a random color change spell at the pants once I charm them to be stretchy. Whatever color it turns, we'll stick with it. Good?"

Bruce blinked. "Sure. Why didn't we do this earlier?"

"Dunno." Harry shrugged. "Guess we were too busy worrying about your control."

Charming the pants took a while, mostly because Bruce insisted on Harry explaining every part of the process. He was still trying to apply science to Harry's magic. So, as Harry explained every part of the process as he worked, Bruce tried to draw parallels to what he knew about science. It was difficult, but Bruce was learning to accept magic as a separate entity, something that didn't necessarily have to follow the rules of science.

Once the pants were charmed, Harry cast a color change charm at them.

They turned pink.

Harry and Bruce stared in horror. "We're going to redo the spell, right?" Bruce said shakily.

"Right." Harry answered, equally shaky. If there was one thing they could agree on, it was that pink was not anywhere near the list of possibilities.

Harry redid the charm. The pants turned purple.

"Hmm." Bruce mused. "Purple. I can live with purple."

"Purple it is then." Harry agreed.

Bruce could control himself and now had pants that wouldn't rip every time he transformed. Things were looking up for Bruce.

* * *

So, Bruce has some control and pants. Good for Bruce.

Again, I won't be around from Tuesday till mid-August. Don't expect any chapters till then.

Review!


	6. Plans and wow, Harry's life really sucks

I'M BAAAAAAAACK!

Actually, I've been back for, like, a week, but I had no time to type. Sorry! Camp was awesome though, but I'm glad to be back. Anyway, as you can see, production is resuming on this story. Divided too- actually, I'm in the middle of typing the next chapter for that, so be ready!

Um... right. Back to this story. This chapter pretty much starts what I've dubbed as the 'H-World chapters'- the ones in which Harry takes Bruce to HP land. They actually get there next chapter. There'll probably be two or three chapters in HP world, and then we get to Avengers! And yes, both Harry and Bruce will be involved with the Avengers. On a side note, anyone know if there's a site where I can get the script for the movie, instead of typing it all by hand?

Anyway, enjoy the chapter!

DISCLAIMER: Never will own the Avengers, unfortunately.

* * *

It takes almost a month for Harry to give in.

It's a month full of laughter, of slowly perfecting Bruce's control, of, as corny as it sounds, friendship and sunshine and the very occasional incident, but those had decreased so much and, even when they did happen, were so much shorter and less violent that Bruce could hardly believe it. He never thought he would be able to live like this, after the accident.

Control over the Other Guy had brought Bruce understanding of his alter-ego as well. The Other Guy's anger wasn't so overwhelming anymore and Bruce didn't fight it so hard, feeling more comfortable with this other aspect of his personality. Hulk wasn't so much about rage and destruction as a desperate need to protect and defend him and his. One day, they'd even had something resembling a conversation. In his head. Bruce told Harry, half joking half deadly serious, that for anyone else, having a conversation with the voice in their head would probably be a sign of insanity. For him, it was a way to control himself and create the hope that one day, he could master completely this other part of him and be able to stop running.

Harry laughed and told Bruce that he shouldn't worry, there were pleanty of other ways for him to go insane. But Bruce knew that the green-eyed wizard knew exactly how he felt. He'd also seen a hint of a sadness older than Bruce could know.

For the first time, Bruce stopped and really thought about Harry's 'condition', his history. Wandering the multiverse for the rest of eternity, having no real home, watching as those he knew and loved and hated grew old and died around him and sure in the knowledge that everyone he ever met would soon follow after. Constantly moving from world to world to ensure that his condition wasn't noticed and to try to delay the pain of realizing that yet another group of friends had left him behind again. His time with Bruce was just a few moments in the vast span of time, pain, and loneliness his life had become.

"It's not that bad." Harry assured him when he voiced some of these thoughts. "I mean, yeah, at first it was absolutely horrible. The first few worlds? Hell. One of them I actually stayed long enough to watch everyone pass on. But my original world is a very slow world, time-wise- I told you about this. I'd guess that 10 years here is about equal to 1 there. So, once I made my way back there, I realized that I hadn't lost everyone there yet. It'll be bad once I do, but I'll deal. As for those who pass on… are you familiar with Greek mythology?"

"Vaguely."

"Well, you know how the underworld is set up? The Fields of Asphodel, where all the average Joes go, Elysium, for the 'heroes' and good guys, and Tartarus, for the criminals, generally unpleasant guys, and the idiots who pissed off the gods. The real afterlife- I usually refer to it as Beyond- is kinda like that, organization-wise. There's two major groups that people can go to; what most would call Heaven and Hell, Asphodel and Tartarus. You can choose to be reborn through either. Most do. It's more complicated, obviously, but…"

"Ok. How does that relate?" Bruce wanted to know more about the afterlife, of course, but he was curious to know where Harry was going with this.

"There's a third, more elite option, the Elysium so to speak. I call it Godric's Hollow, since it's essentially my real home now. Death created it for me a bit after I became Master of Death, when we got closer and actually became friends. If you're a friend of mine- someone I care about, someone I'd miss- you can go there. Unless you suddenly turn around and stab me in the back, you'll have a place there."

Bruce leaned forwards slightly, intrigued. "What's the difference between there and everywhere else?"

"The Hollow's a lot like life." Harry continued. "It's like a neighborhood. You'll be given a house and be able to invite people to join you there; your wife, best friend, any kids, etc. The people you can't live without. Plus, everyone in the Hollow is like family, once you get to know them. It's a close knit community. Mom once told me it was their mutual worry over me that brought them together, but she was joking. I think. Anyway, I visit often."

"What if someone you wanted to invite had already been reborn?"

"They'll come around again eventually." Harry reassured him. "Plus, there's something akin to a twenty year waiting list, and people tend to want a bit of a break before they go back to the whirlwind of life. Don't worry."

"How is there a waiting list?" Bruce was still a bit incredulous. "The world's population is growing, not staying in balance."

Harry looked at him like he was insane. "Beyond applies to every single mortal creature anywhere- so everything in the multiverse. Not just this Earth. And, even if one planet has a population boom, another's just been destroyed violently and everything and everyone on it was killed. It evens out."

Bruce nodded and decided to be quiet and absorb everything he's just learned. He still had some trouble accepting all this magic and, apparently, afterworld stuff; he was a scientist through and through. He trusted Harry, though- he knew the wizard wouldn't lie to him for no reason. So he accepted and dealt with information as he learned that he might not have before.

"How often do you go?" Bruce asked. "I mean, these must be long visits, and you've never gone missing for more than, I don't know, 20 minutes? And you've been here almost 2 months already."

Despite this, Harry nodded. "I go there pretty often. Twice since I arrived here. Time runs differently, remember? Each time, I spent a day or so there, and only a few minutes went by here. Technically, there is no real time Beyond, so I could have stayed as long as I wanted… it's really, really complicated. Even I don't understand it all."

The conversation progressed to more mundane things after that, but Bruce started asking Harry to bring him to visit either the Hollow or to his original world. Harry held out as long as he could, but inevitably caved.

He couldn't take Bruce to Godric's Hollow. Once you were there, you were there. Death was not reversible- usually- and you needed to be dead to be there. He could, however, take Bruce to visit what he usually thought of as H-World, both for Hogwarts and for home. He had brought people before, so it wasn't like there wasn't a precedent, nor would any of his friends think anything of it. At least Bruce looked human. They would likely be a bit suspicious of Bruce, at least at first, and would probably interrogate him and make sure he was taking care of Harry. Harry was certain that Bruce would measure up to standards (he never brought anyone unless he did) so it wasn't too much of an issue. He trusted Bruce and was sure that Bruce would never tell anyone about his experiences there. He was also fairly certain that Bruce would adjust well to the magic. He'd done well so far, although he'd never been exposed to the amount of magic he would be.

No, the problem, the reason why he'd hesitated, was because H-World was his. It had always been and would always be where he was most vulnerable. His first home and his family was there. It was somewhere private, personal, where he could go and pretend for one infinitesimally small second that he wasn't Master of Death and just be Harry Potter, not the mysterious dimension traveller that no one could ever really understand.

And wasn't the ironic? His entire adolescence, he wished that he wasn't Harry Potter. Now all he wanted was for everything to go back to how it was. Bringing Bruce- bringing anyone- would ruin that illusion. He'd barely brought two dozen people to visit, and compared to the hundreds of worlds he'd visited and millions of people he'd met that was negligible.

It wasn't fair to Bruce though. He'd opened up to Bruce, talked so much about H-World that it was only natural for Bruce to want to visit. So he agreed to bring Bruce the next time he visited. Bruce deserved it.

Said scientist was ecstatic. He was excited to see this new world and everything in it, but he was also looking forward to learning more about his companion. He knew a lot about Harry's relatively recent history, sure; his recent travels, his role as Master of Death. But he didn't know much about his past before the world-hopping and all. Sure, he knew about the scattered event or person, but he didn't have an idea about how his life had actually been. He didn't know about his real family. Hopefully this trip would help.

Hopefully, Hulk would not make an appearance either. He generally tried not to freak strangers out by exposing them to the giant green rage monster, but then again, Harry kinda one-upped him in the introductions department. You know. What with the zombie.

They spent the rest of the week preparing. Harry gave Bruce some impromptu lessons whenever he felt like it on a variety of topics, from potions to places to people. Finally, he deemed Bruce prepared.

They would leave the next day.

* * *

Or, for you guys, a couple of days. Whenever I get the chapter out. Anyway, hope it was worth the wait!

Review!


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